algorithms

One of the few books organising algorithms around design techniques instead of application areas (see "Algorithms" from Sedgevick). Though both approachs have pros and cons, I've found the former most convenient for people learning to design algorithms. Many problems admit several solutions depending on the design tecnique involved. This fact is emphasized by the authors.

The book is self-contained, plainly written, so that an undergraduate can read it after taking a prerequisite course on programming.

It's also mathematically rigorous, while mantaining simplicity. This allows analysis of algorithms to be really "analytic" (no more guessing the solution to a recurrence relation).

One main drawback (certainly usual) is the lack of excercise solutions.

This book is written in a simple style: algoritm class description, related proofs, examples, variations and exemples. Because of this clean approach, you can basically read it in a couple days if you have the necessary background knowledge, and in a couple weeks if not. I strongly recommend this book to everyone who are calling themselves "programers", either graduated or not, it will teach/remind them what are the elegant fundamental algorithmic approches to common problems; it's seems that today's software could use a bit of this elegance. As for all the negative reviews, I'm astonished. I own several books on the subject, and I find this one the easiest to read, no question. It must be some sort of personal vendetta against the author, a failed undegraduate course with this book as teaching material, or some other personal reason; that's probably why this/these person(s) whish(es) to remain anonymous.

The reason I dislike this book is that it is written in a conversational style, which is very hard to follow. Being a beginner at this, it would be much more helpful if things were separated and clearly emphasized step by step. This book makes it difficult because all proofs are written into a big block of a paragraph. I normally have taken an hour or so to decode a paragraph so that I can say "Oh! That's what he meant." The content is good- layout is bad.